


it's a fearful thing (love, or death?)

by scarsimp



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Fort Briggs, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Miles Centric, Minor Character Death, implied future scarmiles?, maybe? - Freeform, short haired olivier, using the cold as a metaphor for trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarsimp/pseuds/scarsimp
Summary: Miles was cold.
Kudos: 18





	it's a fearful thing (love, or death?)

**Author's Note:**

> also inspired by a poem! by yehuda halevi
> 
> ‘Tis a fearful thing  
> to love what death can touch.  
> A fearful thing  
> to love, to hope, to dream, to be –  
> to be,  
> And oh, to lose.  
> A thing for fools, this,  
> And a holy thing,  
> a holy thing  
> to love.  
> For your life has lived in me,  
> your laugh once lifted me,  
> your word was gift to me.  
> To remember this brings painful joy.  
> ‘Tis a human thing, love,  
> a holy thing, to love  
> what death has touched.

The Armstrong mansion was too cold. 

It stuck out to Miles everyday he walked into it, the chill of the halls screaming of quiet and control. It made his bones ache, gnawing down to the core of him in a way Briggs never could manage. At least there, people  _ lived. _ Not the false sense of normalcy Olivier attempted to display, maids and butlers but never owners or children. Never even Olivier. Just one person, and Miles, and the echo of a ghost long dead.    
  
Miles missed Buccaneer more than he thought he would.    
  
There was a heat signature at his side, a gap where his best friend was supposed to be and wasn’t. The rooms echoed with it, silence ringing instead of a loud voice and Miles remembered why he hated the quiet. Waiting might’ve been more bearable with someone else, filling in the void and the frigid air in his lungs with life. He didn’t even get to say goodbye.    
  
The beds were empty as the rest and the tick of an antique clock filled him with irritation instead of exasperation. His breathing was too loud and  _ his _ breathing was too quiet for Miles to even hear. The chairs creaked, the bed was too still, and Miles still hadn’t seen Olivier since she left that morning. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye, either.    
  
If someone else he cared for died, Miles would be damned if he didn’t get a goodbye. So he lingered, haunting the edges of the doors and the fringes of the windows like he was the ghost. Listened carefully to whatever that doctor, Marcoh, said whenever he was allowed in, and tried not to shiver at the breeze that followed him everywhere.    


He changed bandages, and if he crept in to see if they were soiled (Read: see if  _ he _ was breathing) deep into the night then that was his own business. Miles hated being helpless but all he could do was wait. Filing through paperwork was a mind numbing task that he was almost too on edge for, the scratch of pen against paper the wrong noise. 

Miles longed for days faded in the dust and fought down the voice in his head asking if that was greedy. 

It took three days for  _ him _ to even move, the slightest shift that Miles only caught because he was sitting by the bed, a book that he was pretending to read in one hand. It was something on flowers, frivolous information that he doubted he would ever really need. (He couldn’t help but notice that  _ his _ eyes were red like Hyacinth.)   
  
A ragged breath, eyelids twitching as  _ he _ swallowed sporadically. Miles stared for a split second, still and tense as he watched the other finally come to life. No consciousness surfaced, no words were spoken, no prayers, and yet for the first time since the world ended Miles didn’t feel alone. It was a strange feeling, filling the ice of his joints like warm air.

Olivier stopped by eventually, Ice Queen through and through. She was stern, calculating and swift in her actions- stating what she expected Miles to do and unbending in her will. (If Miles noticed that her eyes were pinker than normal, or that her hands held the barest tremor, then that was his secret.) He heard the orders as if underwater, and the numb routine of it all felt like playing dress up soldier instead of the reality. If her mansion was frozen, then she was a blizzard. 

Miles’ hands were freezing. 

The second time  _ he _ moved it lasted longer, each second stretching into a millennium, each heart beat a gasp for drawn out breath. Wet lungs stiff in the air and sticky eyes fluttering, Miles felt the cold blood of his veins stop when Hyacinth eyes stared at the ceiling. (He knew they saw nothing. Empty and faded, eyes like the dead. A year later they closed again and Miles realized that only seconds had passed. 

Olivier came in again. Her hair was gone, chopped short to the ears. (Buccaneer would’ve cried. It ached like a fresh wound in his periphery. The pounding throb of ‘gone. gone. gone. gone.’ ) When he asked what brought the change on she merely rolled her eyes and ignored him. He had a feeling she couldn’t say why she cut it out loud. (Had a feeling Alexander knew why.)   
  
Miles wouldn’t deny staring at the scissors in his room like something holy, holding them in a callused hand and marveling at how easy it would be. His braids weren’t thick like some of his family’s, the shears could cut through them and then maybe he could restart  _ something. _ Eventually he put them back here he found them and concluded that his ears would freeze if he cut his hair off. 

The third time  _ he _ moved was also the last. Miles wasn’t there for it. Olivier had finally come back again, this time with clothing and papers and a reluctant letter from her brother that Miles tried not to be jealous of. (He would never understand why she hated her family. He wished he still had family to hate.) She had wanted to see  _ him _ , mentioning something offhand about it that Miles didn’t quite catch.    
  
_ He _ was standing, leaning on the windowsill and staring down at the bright green, green,  _ green.  _ Miles something wondered if he left part of his soul in North City, the consuming, starving snow a comfort and the trees and plush green grass something that set his teeth on edge. Things could hide in snow, but  _ people _ could hide in seemingly innocuous trees.    
  
_ He _ didn’t seem to think so, and it was only when they were both standing in the room did  _ he _ tear his eyes away from the view. No comment was made about Olivier’s hair, something she seemed to appreciate, and as he spoke Miles could feel that empty wound close up for a moment.    
  
The smile sent their way looked nothing like Buccaneer (The scar. The eyes. White hair instead of black. Their noses, everything about them was different and yet-) but it reminded Miles of him anyway.    
  
Someone trustworthy.    
  
Miles wondered if he liked Hyacinth. 


End file.
